by James Crow
‘Right about what?’ Beth says. The taste left behind on Beth’s lips is not pleasant, her mind quickly likens it to a peach gone sour, sour sour sour sour sour sour sour
Elizabeth’s eyes follow the words around the dome. She looks back to Beth and huffs through her nostrils.
‘Please tell me what happens next?’ Beth fears a backlash.
…backlash backlash backlash
Elizabeth softens. ‘Yes, next. We must not get side-tracked. When Master saw my happiness, and I told him how energised I felt, how alive, how at one with the patterns of life, he took me down the pit and loved me, and it was the finest love, and afterwards he said: Perfect child, remember these words, for I am certain they will be your calling . . . The words, in the Master’s deep voice, roll around the dome. You must engage with yourself, with heart and mind and soul, where you might reach out to others in the simplest of ways, make them see the truth of themselves. A pause, then, Perfect child, there must be no wasted opportunities. Two minds are always better than one.
Beth’s lost. But there’s three minds, isn’t there, not two? Shut up, Beth, shut up, shut up. Her words follow Master’s words around the wall.
The wood spirit sighs and the dome shivers. Who’s there? a small voice travels up through the floor.
Elizabeth giggles at this. ‘Master was right. He always is. So clever.’
‘But we’re inside a memory,’ Beth counters.
‘Memories are real, Bethy. I already told you that, did I not?’
‘Yes.’ yes yes yes yes yes yes yes
‘If memories weren’t real, then we’d have nothing to fret about and nothing to aim for, you see?’
‘Yes,’ Beth lied. She didn’t see at all.
‘Anyway, look.’
Through the circular windows a man in a suit comes into view – puppet man. Young Elizabeth is picked up and swung around. For a fleeting moment the dome’s soil-brown walls sprinkle with flowers, dirt crumbles to the floor and Beth’s feet leave the ground as the scenery outside whizzes past the windows.
The wood spirit at her side is also floating. She’s grinning at Beth, her hair blowing in a breeze that isn’t there. Beth realises that her hair is blowing too, and she almost loses her balance when the scenery through the windows comes to halt and young Elizabeth’s feet thump to the ground.
Through the windows, young Elizabeth’s arms come into view and her yellow dress rushes upwards. Young hands take hold of a rope, and Master watches from the opening as she descends into the pit. He’s removing his suit.
The wood spirit’s arm comes around Beth’s shoulder. ‘Get ready to feel the love, Bethy.’
feel the love feel the love feel the love
4
Rose puffed the pillows, made herself comfortable and sketched Whittle in another pose: naked and mangled through the spokes of his cartwheel, a spliff hanging from his cheery smile. Taking her time, and enjoying every second, she gave Derek the most handsome hard on. She pencilled in some veins, added shading to create a generous girth, and made the end especially bulbous because she really would like it up her ass right now.
That very thought snapped her to, took her breath. She felt . . . warm. Wet, Rose. You’re fucking wet. She touched a hand to her chest, the slightest tickle ran through her. A nice tickle.
She wondered again about the stump of penis on Whittle’s model, considered giving the sketch of Whittle the same treatment, but instead she put the pad down, drank some more of the expensive red and started on joint number two – packed with a double dose of weed.
Something about Derek Whittle was making Rose’s senses tingle. Whether these were romantic tingles or the kind of tingles you get when you just know there’s a big fat spider lurking nearby, she couldn’t determine. Nevertheless, feeling her breasts again seemed like a good idea right now, and allowing Whittle into her fantasy would be a bit of well-deserved and harmless fun, wouldn’t it?
Through the bedroom doorway, she could see across the living area to the open front door and the dark night outside. She thought about closing the front door before attempting to summon the phantoms, but who was going to pass by this time of night, except maybe a fox . . . or a badger? Besides, the open door was sucking her smoke away . . . didn’t want to set off the smoke alarm and have Pete-the-creep come running with his tongue hanging out.
She lay back on the pillow, stared at the smoke alarm on the ceiling and thought of Whittle, his cheery face. She closed her eyes and imagined them having dinner together in the pub up the road, clinking glasses over minty lamb chops, laughing and joking about life’s trials and tribulations. He, confiding that he was really a priest doing God’s work via missions abroad: saving potbellied kids from leg worms, and babies from earthquake rubble, and she, telling him that . . . yes she was a great artist, a creator of stories loved by millions, and then, a warm moment, his touch against her leg. He’s slipped his foot from his shoe and he’s stroking her ankle and smiling as if he truly loves her. He takes her hand and squeezes it. So sweet. Clichéd maybe but she had to start somewhere.
Now they’re outside having a cig under the light from the pub’s sign. The cold night air steams their breath, of course, and Whittle’s arm comes around her as she shivers. He’s warm and comfortable next to her. She nestles into him and he lifts her chin and they kiss and soon his hand is slipping inside her blouse, caressing, stroking lightly over a proud nipple.
Rose’s hand slipped inside her dressing gown, caressed the scars within. She willed them to turn, willed them to be full again, willed them to be real and moaned when heat flourished down below. Her hand went there, fingers eager, clit sparking. This is it. Yes, Rose, yes!
Back inside the warm pub, Whittle pays the bill. He insists he must pay for his pleasure. She laughs at his words and they laugh about it again in the car, where she can’t help but touch his leg and he can’t help but touch hers. She can be brave in a fantasy – she strokes a hand up his thigh and squeezes the healthy bulge in his trousers. I can’t wait for you to be inside me, she says (corny but horny). Whittle touches her hair. I want to taste you on my lips, he says and the Rose on the bed feels a flush of warmth in her chest and she moans when the scars prickle. Moans again as her fingers circle her clit.
Your place or mine? The sign for Loch Rowe Cabins is upon them.
Mine, says Whittle, I have special brandy waiting for such a special moment. Rose thinks moment is the wrong word choice, rewinds, and this time he says, I have special brandy waiting for such a special lady. Lady? Rewind. For such a special woman. She drives the long way round the loch while Whittle’s hand squeezes at her splendid breasts and yellow leaves swirl in the beams from the headlights.
She parks up and drags Whittle to the silver birch, its bark so bright in the moonlight. I saw you pissing, she says. I know, he replies and his hands are at the buttons of her blouse and the blouse falls from her shoulders. The cold air hits and goosebumps erupt and her nipples seem to stretch out towards the sky. He’s there, sucking at her breasts noisily. She’s there, hands at the back of his head, pulling him onto her, teeth scraping, biting, and between her legs a fire ignites. She pushes Whittle to the damp grass and onto his back.
He’s loosening his shirt, his trousers. She places a foot either side of his chest and looks down at his face smiling in the moonlight. Tongue! she orders. Whittle grins his cheery grin and waggles his tongue. Rose lifts her skirt and lowers herself until her knees touch the damp grass either side of his head. His tongue flicks at her needy cunt and she moans and looks to the sky as thick cloud takes the moon away and the first spots of rain land on her exposed breasts. Beautiful firm breasts. She takes them in her hands and kneads them and cries out as a bolt of pain shoots through her wrist. She rolls away from Whittle, rubbing her pain-racked hand and sobbing out an apology, but Whittle’s upon her, bearing down in priest’s garb, his eyes ablaze. He’s holding out a silver cross as if she were a demon, and her breasts shrivel away
to wasted bags.
Rose yelped, the pain in her wrist a flaming hot bastard. She sat up on the bed, pulled her dressing gown around herself, the scars tight and sore. ‘Roseanne old girl, you need to grow the fuck up.’
She’d turned down the chance of reconstruction; the pain of going through another operation, one that was probably unnecessary, was way too much to bear in the name of vanity. A reconstruction would be just that – a falseness, an untruth. She wondered what Whittle would think of her scars. Danni once suggested she get tattoos: butterflies and bloody roses. She’d pooh-poohed that idea, of course. Rose made to get up and saw the lucky cup on the bedside table. She reached for it, cuddled it to her ugly chest, and the tears flowed.
5
Through the circular windows, Master, suit discarded, climbs down the knotted rope.
I am so fortunate, comes the small voice through the floor.
Master steps from the rope. His arms reach out.
I don’t want this, this this this this Beth’s thought rolls around the murky dome.
‘Don’t be silly. I promise you’ll like it.’ Elizabeth pulls her to. ‘Hug me, Bethy, we’ll feel it together, all four of us.’
The hole that is the pit’s opening drops into view through the windows, a circle of bright blue sky above. Master is laying her down. His touch comes through to Beth’s arms and makes her skin crawl. The blue sky is soon hidden behind Master’s chest and head, his eyes burning with . . .
‘Love, Bethy. You will give him your will and you will feel the love.’ These words are whispered into Beth’s ear and the wood spirit’s breath brushes warmly across her neck with the scent of ripe mushrooms. ‘You’re not hugging me back, Bethy. Hug me back, you little shit.’
Slowly the windows close up and the dome darkens. ‘Hug me!’ Elizabeth hisses. Beth hugs her back with one arm, feels heavy legs pressing against her legs and the dome starts to shudder.
Elizabeth is trembling, her breath hot against Beth’s neck. Beth sees a chance. A real chance! She finds the pocket on the wood spirit’s dress and carefully feels inside. Bingo! It’s there. She swipes the whistle up to her mouth and blows hard at the wood spirit’s ear.
Outside, a scream. Inside, a scream. The wood spirit tumbles to the floor and once again, if only for the split of a second, the wood spirit’s face vanishes to bone, her dress flickers, her bulging white eyes make Beth want to run. Now the wood spirit’s face is back to normal. She gets to her feet and raises a hand as if to slap.
‘Wait!’ Beth says and the raised hand pauses. ‘It’s a lie.’
‘What is?’
‘You told me to feel the truth. Well I tried. And found it was a lie.’
Elizabeth laughs, lowers her hand. ‘You will learn.’
‘I already have.’
Gentle sobbing comes through the floor.
The wood spirit glances to the shuttered windows. ‘I did not cry, you can’t change the memory, Bethy.’
The shuttered windows open up. The view is hazy with tears. Young Elizabeth is sobbing into Master’s chest.
‘Obviously I can.’
There, child, there, I didn’t mean to hurt you . . . hurt hurt hurt Master’s words roll around the wall.
Elizabeth glares at her. ‘You made him hurt me.’
‘I did not, I just . . .’ Beth lifts the whistle to her lips once again and blows with every ounce of wind in her lungs.
The scream outside is louder than the scream inside. The dome shudders and fragments and vanishes into silence. They’re back in the dark and damp where water drips. Beth’s eyes adjust. Her pink backpack is at the steps where she’d left it. That was a lie, too. ‘All a lie,’ she says as Elizabeth steps from the shadows. She has no face – only teeth and bone. Now Beth, now’s your chance.
Beth takes off, sprints through the dark, catches her backpack by a strap and leaps up the steps in twos. At the top she bumps into Elizabeth’s legs and falls panting to her knees.
‘It strikes me,’ Elizabeth’s hand forms a fist in Beth’s hair and she’s pulled to her feet, ‘that you need a greater lesson.’ She swings Beth around by the hair and shoves her down the steps.
Beth loses her footing and her knees crack on the bottom step and scrape along the floor. She falls onto her side, the tangy smell of blood instant. She keeps the cry of pain inside and backs away across the floor. She’ll fight if she has to, but there must be a way to escape. There must be.
‘What to do with Bethany Black?’ Elizabeth comes slowly down the steps, her face once again back to normal. ‘Don’t you realise I’m failing in my duty? Help me, Bethy, tell me what will make you see how grateful you should be. Tell me!’
Beth’s mind’s in a whirl. ‘I really need to go now.’
‘Go? You don’t need to go anywhere,’ the wood spirit sneers. ‘Want to go home to Mummy, do you? Want to go tell tales, do you? I’ve known the likes of you, all bright ideas and selfish minds. I had hopes for you, Bethany. High hopes.’
‘I won’t tell tales. I promise.’
The wood spirit laughs and takes a step closer. ‘I know you won’t tell, not ever will you tell. I’ll show you what happens to blabbermouths.’
The wood spirit lunges. Beth tries to move but isn’t quick enough; clammy hands clamp around her wrists and the peelaway explodes once again into bright yellow sunshine.
Only it’s not sunshine. Huge yellow banners adorn the walls of this room, each with a single eye in the centre. Fourteen chairs arranged in a circle contain fourteen men in suits. Beth knows there’s fourteen. She doesn’t have to count them. Each man is wearing a white veil that hides his face. There’s a distinct smell of . . . sweat.
Double doors open and Master enters. He’s wearing a white robe and his hair is fanned out, and in his arms a naked woman trembles. Tears run from her swollen eyes. Her mouth is sealed with tape. That’s not nice at all.
‘That’s Erika,’ says Elizabeth. ‘A rambler from Germany. She would not shut up. Even though I could not understand her language, I knew she was begging and pleading for release, and all the while praying to a sky god. Master determined her insane and unusable. He cut out her tongue, but even that did not shut her up. You do realise there are no sky gods, Bethy, that it’s all hogwash, yes?’
Beth has no clue, she nods anyway.
‘Sky gods exist in the minds of the weak. And being weak is never clever – is it?’
‘Never,’ Beth says.
‘Good-good. Now watch.’
Master carries the trembling woman to a metal trolley in the centre of the room and sets her on it. She struggles and kicks out with her feet, but he grabs them and fastens them into scoops on poles that protrude from the end of the trolley. He moves around to the woman’s head and rips the tape from her mouth.
The men in suits have risen from their chairs and now form a line, and the German woman screams from her throat, a sound that strangles Beth’s ears. She suddenly realises that a younger Elizabeth is nowhere to be seen, so this can’t therefore be a memory. ‘Another lie,’ she says before the wood spirit can voice her thoughts.
Elizabeth pounces and grabs Beth’s wrist. ‘It’s a story memory, silly child. I wasn’t there for her death, but I was there to celebrate her burial.’ The slap comes hard and the yellow banners spin like a carousel to the sound of tongueless screams.
This time it’s real sunshine. They’re standing in the grass alongside the pit. The pit has its wooden top and hatch and the almond-shaped handle is shiny new. Young Elizabeth is there, holding Master’s hand. They’re both naked, so are the men carrying the German rambler’s bloodied body.
‘This is what happens when you can’t stop your blubbering; when you can’t stop to appreciate just how fortunate you are.’
Beth watches as the young Elizabeth reaches to the handle and opens the hatch to a tornado of flies. The woman’s body is dropped headfirst into the hole. There’s a dull thump of flesh hitting – flesh? The hatch is closed
and the naked men march swiftly across the field.
Elizabeth takes up Beth’s hand. Now they’re on the hill where the water tank stands, but still there’s no water tank. Water spurts through cracks in the rock and the fourteen men shower beneath it and young Elizabeth scrubs them with soap as Master sits nearby.
‘Can we go now?’ Beth says. She really doesn’t like this.
Elizabeth looks at her with narrowed eyes. ‘What’s not to like? I’m convinced you’re a retard, Bethany Black.’
A retard? She’s been called that in the school playground many times and had looked it up in her dictionary. Retard meant slow – and Bethany Black is anything but. Some of the showering men are washing each other now. Beth notices a white butterfly on the grass to the side of the men and focuses on that.
‘I like butterflies too,’ says the wood spirit, a big smile lights up her face and she holds out a hand. ‘Which reminds me, there’s someone quite wonderful I’d like you to meet.’
6
Bob’s fired-up, wet with sweat, aching from all the dancing and screwing, yet desperate for more. He’s in the armchair by the window, where Carol ordered him to wait. His skin is flushed red, heartbeat loud, muscles tense. He feels like a demon of destruction, or even Old Nick himself. He’s getting the horn just thinking about his Caro. She’s been in the bedroom a goodly while, singing All Things Bright and Beautiful accompanied by the buzz of her little sewing machine. He grips his cock, gives it a squeeze, works it fast for a breathless minute. He can’t wait to fuck his Caro.
Last time he felt like this they’d sniffed poppers – Liquid Gold. Strong stuff. Opened three bottles in a hotel room in Clacton on the closing night of Mother Goose. The sex had been urgent and rough and wild. She’d written her name in love bites across his arse cheeks. He’d written Bob on each of her tits, the ‘o’ around each nipple. He’d fucked her arse that night. The one and only time. It was still the best fuck he’d ever had. So tight. So fucking tight. He could come just thinking about it.